


Hecate's Halfway House for Fallen Angels

by JoJoNightshade



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angel Wings, Angels, Awkward Conversations, Demons, Fallen Angels, Gen, Heaven, Hell, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Inappropriate Behavior, Learning to be Human, Pre-Relationship, Sword of Mikael, The Garrison - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 23:22:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7777669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJoNightshade/pseuds/JoJoNightshade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Cate first met Sera, they were trying to kill each other. Now Cate's mission is to teach Sera how to be human, so she can regain her divine status. An angel cast out of Heaven, handed to a demon who fled from Hell--in no way can this end well. Wait--why does Mikael keep showing up? And what does Lucifer have to do with any of this?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hecate's Halfway House for Fallen Angels

Cate was tired.

She took a deep breath and tasted smoke, felt the grit of dust against her skin and pebbles under her boots. The air was hot and humid without the barest trace of wind.

She was going to miss it here.

Lucifer's voice rose in the background. She could see the crowd of demons edging forward, straining to hear their Lord's voice. Just last night she had been one of them.

The crowd worked to her advantage. Lucifer would never notice her absence until she was well and truly gone. 

He could always bring her back by force; Cate hadn't deluded herself into believing she could really run. But she hoped that millennia of something like friendship would allow him to let her go—or, more realistically, not smite her for daring to leave.

If she squinted she could make out his silhouette, lit by hellfire. She would miss him too, Cate realized as she began to turn away; he had been her only constant companion. 

She hadn't even left and she was getting soft. Companion was a kind way of putting it; he was more of a constant pain in the ass. She had been his lieutenant, and that meant cleaning up his messes and chasing after him, lecturing while he walked away.

Hell was still functioning, so she must have done something right. She wondered how much longer that would last.

She took one last look at the crowd. Most of the demons were groveling now, kissing the ground as Lucifer took his leave. 

Hell was failing. It might stay on this brink for millennia to come, but one day Lucifer would pick the wrong fight, and with his defeat the kingdom would come crashing down. None of these demons had what it took to be a ruler—they were worshippers. Followers.

They were sharpening their weapons now, preparing for a new day. Once she'd done the same; now it made her ill. They'd taken damnation and turned it into the fulfillment of all their sick fantasies; the souls that entered for punishment were made into new demons. It would never end.

Guilt rose in her throat like bile. She swallowed it down. 

Lucifer wasn't completely incompetent. He would keep Hell running despite her absence; after all, there had been a kingdom before she'd arrived. With luck, he might find another lieutenant who had the guts to tell him he was wrong.

But in the meantime...

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her body became smoke, curling through the barriers that separated Hell from the mortal world; she was rising, rising—

Perhaps it would be better up there.

****

An angel has her pinned to the wall.

It’s not some cheesy pick-up line, though Cate’s probably heard them all. She has this tingle at the back of her neck like electricity traveling up her spine, and it screams danger, as if the knife pressing into her chest isn’t enough.

The funny thing is, angels don’t usually come to this part of town. They don’t come down to Earth at all, unless it’s to exact divine vengeance for calling their halos stupid. 

As a demon, reformed or not, Cate has done a lot more than that. It’s strange that Heaven would choose to send someone now. But then again, angels have been on her ass since before she left Hell. This one is no surprise.

There’s something different about her, though—something different enough that Cate questions her conclusion for a moment. For one, she doesn’t hold herself with the confidence that all her previous counterparts did. She doesn’t even glow.

That’s the thing that makes Cate question most of all. Usually angels look like they’re wearing someone else’s skin when they shift to human form, and some of their divinity always shines through. It manifests as a sort of glow, something that humans might overlook but Cate certainly won’t.

This angel is clearly uncomfortable, but there’s no light seeping out of every pore. She keeps glancing behind her, as if waiting for someone to sneak up on her and strike her down.

That doesn’t matter, though—at least, not now. Cate’s pretty sure she’s about to say bye-bye.

“What do you want?”

The angel’s arm trembles with strain. Cate hopes she feels that burn for days and remembers that this demon didn’t go out without a decent fight. “I can’t tell you.” 

“Oh, of course. My death,” Cate rolls her eyes. “Boring. Why?”

Something flickers across her assailant’s face. Cate thinks she recognizes it, but at the same time she hasn’t seen it in any heavenly being. All angels feel the same to her—bright (too bright), unyielding, loyal. But this one feels—

—if Cate weren’t so sure she was an angel, she might have been human.

“Mikael demands your soul.”

“Funny,” Cate snipes. The grip on her neck doesn’t loosen. She tries to kick and white lashes her to the wall. “I’ve been reliably informed it’s worthless.”

“That may be so,” the angel pants, breathing hard, “But those are my orders.”

Orders, orders, orders. That’s all it is with these angels. Being a demon’s so much more fun.

“Pity, it is. I liked you.”

The angel scoffs, slightly hysterical. “You’re just saying that to trick me.” She flicks her hand and the knife spins, no longer against Cate’s skin. She should be relieved. Instead, she might be properly scared for the first time in this conversation. 

The angel glances around again. The arm holding Cate to the wall trembles still, and Cate realizes from her tense frame that it might not be from strain. 

“You’re not here on orders, are you?” she asks. 

The fingers around her throat tightens. Cate’s head pounds and she scrabbles futilely at the grasp cutting off her circulation. Her vocal cords don’t work, but she manages a smirk. 

“Shut up! You know nothing!” With a furious yell, the angel draws her back and slams her into the wall behind her. Her head hits the brick with a crunch and pain explodes in her skull. The healing hurts almost as much as the initial wound.

“I know everything,” Cate rasps. And it’s a lie, she knows nothing at all, but the angel’s face crumples and the fingers around her neck loosen. Cate slides to the ground, gasping for air she doesn’t need. “Rebelling, aren’t you? Naughty.”

“I’m not—” her voice breaks. “Stop stalling,” she says finally. “It won’t save you.”

“I’m not trying to save myself.”

The angel tilts her head. “Liar,” she accuses. “You’ve been out of so long, you’re almost human. And if there’s one thing humans are consistent about, it’s self preservation.” It’s the first mildly original thing she’s said so far.

The angel steps on Cate’s wrist as she reaches for the gun tucked in her waistband. She lets out a strangled gasp and thinks that maybe she sees the angel wince, though that might have been her own tunneling vision. She never did take well to pain.

Her eyes must close for a moment, because the next time she opens them the angel is kneeling besides her. At least that’s one thing she can brag about—she’s brought an angel to her knees, even if it’s to kill her. 

The angel brings the knife down. Something like pity flashes over her face.

Cate wants to reach out and tear her wings off, wants to rip her intestines from her stomach and strangle her with them. She wants to maim and torture and kill, but she can’t and so she watches the knife enter her chest with startling detachment and a cold fury in her veins.

“For what it’s worth,” the angel says, and her voice cracks, “I’m sorry. But it’s my duty.”

Cate reaches up. Her fingertips are stained with red, and she paints a stripe on the angel’s cheek. Just because she’s been human for the last millennia doesn’t mean she’s forgotten cruelty. Her next words will haunt the angel forever.

“You’re forgiven,” she whispers, and her smile is genuine as her vision fades away. The last thing she sees is the angel’s stricken face, and her last thought as a living being is triumphant—I win.

At least, that’s how she plans it.

But three seconds pass and the familiar fading of life energy doesn’t come.

Cate blinks. She looks down at the hole in her shirt, stained with blood, and thinks, why am i not dead yet? The wound is healing before her eyes.

The angel frowns. 

“Fuck!” Cate shouts as the angel stabs her again. “Are you fucking kidding me? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Her words are lost on the angel, who draws back her arm and brings it down over and over. Just because it’s not killing her doesn’t mean it isn’t painful, and Cate screams this at the angel who seems to be unable to kill her.

The stabs are erratic now, most of them nonfatal even if she were human. Cate, suddenly terrified that she’s going to be stabbed in this alley forever, lunges upward mid strike and seizes the angel by the hair.

The knife clatters out of her hand. The angel stares at Cate, horror dawning on her face, and then shoves at her so violently she lets go. “No,” she says, quietly at first. “No, no, no, NO!”

Then she’s gone, fleeing around the corner without a backward glance.

Cate presses her hand to the last bleeding wound in her side. The knife she was stabbed with lies next to her, abandoned. 

“What the hell was that?” she says out loud. 

No one answers.

****

Cate is determined to forget that incident. 

She throws the knife into a corner of her closet without bothering to clean it. She burns the clothes she was wearing and doesn’t go anywhere near that bar again, mildly terrified that an angel with a twisted sense of duty is going to come after her.

Cate’s fairly confident in her own skills. But her skills only extend to sane beings. The angel doesn’t quite fit into that category, not if her psychotic break the other day was normal.

Cate keeps waiting for the angel to come back. 

It’s for that reason and that reason alone that she catches the extra presence in her apartment. Before he can blink, she has him by the throat and against the wall.

“Mikael?”

The Warrior of Heaven (or whatever pretentious name they’re calling him now) smirks at her. “Hecate.”

For all of Lucifer’s griping, he had forgotten to mention that Mikael was hot. He did, however, get the point across that his brother was a complete asshole. Cate is inclined to agree; he did just break into her apartment.

“It’s Cate,” she snaps. “So what, your minion couldn’t finish the job so they sent you?”

“I’m hardly needed for a cleanup job,” Mikael snipes. He stares pointedly at her hand on his neck. “I’m not here to kill you. Now let me go.”

Cate glares.

Her back slams against the opposite wall with startling force, and the painting above her crashes to the floor. Damn, she liked those flowers. “What the hell?”

Mikael looks down at the buttons of his dress shirt (seriously, who wears those to a murder) and actually undoes the shirt cuffs. As if he couldn’t get any more cliche movie villain. “I don’t understand,” he says, and that’s not right, he’s supposed to be killing her. “How do humans fight in these?”

Is he serious? 

He frowns. He’s serious. Great, she got the idiot angel.

“Humans,” she stresses. “As in, weak, breakable little shits? I’m sure they’d love to tear each other apart, but they’re not built that way.”

Mikael’s still studying his shirtsleeves as if they’re the most interesting things he’s ever seen. The way Heaven seems, they just might be.

“Hello,” Cate says. “Yoo-hoo. I’m here. You can kill me now.”

“I just said I wasn’t here to kill you,” Mikael looks at her like gum on the bottom of his shoe.

“Yeah, then you threw me across a room. My room.”

Mikael scoffs. “I asked you to let me go. I was even nice. You refused.”

“That was nice?” Cate says incredulously. “Have you heard of the word ‘please’?”

“No.” Before Cate can retort, he cuts her off, “I’m not here to kill you, despite what you might think. I’m here to ask of you a favor.”

A sigh catches in Cate’s throat. She pushes past Mikael into the kitchen and grabs a beer from the fridge, popping the cap and downing half the bottle as he watches her blankly, just to annoy him. “Wow, complete three sixty there. What does the bossman want with me?”

His expression pinches, but he doesn’t comment. He must be really desperate. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that the newer angels are becoming more...compliant.”

“If by compliant you mean psycho fanatics, then sure,” Cate snorts, remembering the angel’s ‘it’s my duty’ statement before trying to kill her. “But isn’t that what you want?”

Mikael fixes her with a gaze that makes her wary, mostly because he doesn’t look like too much of a dick when he’s that serious. “You know the dangers of having sycophants for subordinates.”

Cate does know. It’s why she left Hell. 

“From what I’ve seen, they’re pretty much all the same to you angels,” she says. “Didn’t you throw Luci out of Heaven because he rebelled as punishment, or something?” She asks this as if she hasn’t spent millennia listening to him whine about it.

Mikael just looks at her. “He wanted to torture people. He got an entire domain to torture people. How is that punishment?”

“Good to know.” Cate folds her arms. “But what can I do for you, Mika? I’m a demon. Not exactly a model subordinate.”

“Exactly,” Mikael agrees. His expression had pinched again at her butchering of his name, but quickly smoothes out. “If Seraphiel could spend some time with you, she may gain some of your better qualities.”

Cate’s too sober for this. Too bad it would take practically an entire bar to get her tipsy. “So you what, want me to be a playmate to your crazy angels and teach them to make their own choices? Why don’t you just send them to preschool?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course not,” Cate mutters. “Angels never do. But in case you haven’t realized, I’m on Heaven’s shit list right now. The times you’ve tried to gank me in the last year alone—”

Mikael leans against the doorframe. It’s a relaxed gesture, but it looks practiced. Mechanical. “I haven’t ordered your death since you left Hell,” he says. “I figured Lucifer would do it for me.”

“Wow,” Cate says. “Awfully nice of you.” He shrugs. “If your stray gets a lucky shot in, I’m going to haunt your ass for eternity.”

“Threatening,” Mikael says sarcastically. It’s funny that he doesn’t understand preschool, but he can grasp the idea of sarcasm. “But as Seraphiel most likely noticed, she is no longer fully angel—at least, for the duration of time you are to stay with her. You will be in no danger.”

That explains why the angel had fled.

“Will that be all?” Cate snarks.

“It will. Yes or no,” Mikael demands.

“No.”

Mikael tilts his head. His eyes turn cold, and Cate has to tell herself that he wants something from her, and therefore she’s safe. Somehow she doesn’t feel very safe. “You misunderstand,” he says. “The answer is yes.”

“Then don’t ask me ‘yes or no’, Mikey,” Cate snaps. She’s not dead yet. It has to mean something. “Tha—”

“Don’t call me that,” Mikael interrupts.

Cate blinks. “You let me call you bossman, but you have a problem with Mikey?”

“I dislike the letter Y,” Mikael says stubbornly. He’s a two year old. 

Unfortunately, he’s also a two year old who can vaporize her in a glance, so she keeps her mouth shut. To some extent—self control only goes so far.

“Yes, sir,” she says with an air salute. “I’ll play babysitter to your rejects in exchange for my life, yada yada. Now is that all, Mika?”

He just disappears.

Three seconds later, as she’s cursing Heaven under her breath, he reappears right behind her. “Seraphiel, meet Cate,” he says, and manages to sound both smug and deadpan. “Cate, meet Seraphiel.”

“When I said yes, I didn’t mean now,” Cate snaps, exasperated. Screw angels and their nonexistent sense of time. “I have a life. I need food. I have a job to go to in the morning.”

“No, you don’t,” Mikael says, completely serious. “I handed in your letter of resignation. There’s money in your bank account; it should be enough.”

Cate narrows her eyes and then scoffs. “Is that even legal?”

Probably not, from his frown. But she’ll take it. She hates her job anyway.

Seraphiel—Sera—frowns too. Cate wonders if she has any expressions of her own; so far she’s just been mirroring Mikael’s. “She’s a demon,” she says.

“Duh,” Cate says. 

“I don’t see the point of this.”

“Neither do I.”

Mikael gives Cate a dirty look without actually looking at her. It’s a pretty impressive skill; she should learn that. “It’s an order,” he says. “You will stay here until I deem it fit for you to return.”

Sera’s mouth falls open, but she doesn’t protest like Cate expects her to. “And my status—”

“Will return when you do.” Mikael looks like he’s planned this for a very long time. “Until then, you’re human. With a few of your angelic powers, but human.”

Again, Sera doesn’t say anything. Her mouth is opening and closing now, as if she wants to say something but can’t think of words. Cate thinks she looks so incredibly shocked in that moment it’s hard to believe she was once an angel.

Then she says, “I will attempt to understand,” and Cate has a very clear thought of nope.

Mikael disappears again. Cate waits for a second to see if he’ll return, maybe with another angel, but he doesn’t. That’s good. One stray is enough.

Sera has wandered away from the kitchen. “What’s this?” she calls, and her voice is so distinctly confused that Cate looks her way. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

There’s a toothbrush in Sera’s hand. This has to be a joke.

But no, Sera is dead serious. Cate stares. “You know how to use contractions but you don’t know what a toothbrush is?” 

Sera blinks. Angels are strange things. 

“You use it to brush your teeth,” Cate tells her. Sera points to her mouth in confusion, and Cate hopes she doesn’t need to give the other girl a lesson on anatomy. “Like—” 

Cate mimes brushing her teeth. Sera looks at the toothbrush again. “I see,” she says, but it’s obvious she doesn’t. She walks out of the bathroom and into the guest bedroom, and Cate leaves her to explore.

****

Twenty minutes after they say goodnight, Sera tiptoes into Cate’s room.

“How do you sleep?” she asks.

Cate jolts from her half asleep state and sits up. “What?”

“How do you sleep?”

“I close my eyes and think of nice things,” Cate says testily. She’s too tired for this. “It’s sleep. You aren’t supposed to think about it unless you never want to do it.”

“But—”

“Imagine an angel beach or something. Or count sheep. Ask Mikael to knock you out if you want; I don’t care. Just go away.” Cate pulls the blanket over her head. Sera stands in her doorway hesitantly for a while, then eventually retreats.

Cate hopes she doesn’t go ask Mikael to knock her out. It’s always better to learn human functions by yourself.

She falls asleep thinking about her experiences with counting sheep.

****

In the morning, Cate is stumbling blearily into the bathroom when there’s a fluttering sound behind her. Mikael’s voice says, “Has she learned anything?”

“Son of a—” she catches herself against the sink and points at the door. “Out!”

Looking confused, Mikael does as he is told. Cate brushes her teeth and does her business before exiting the bathroom. 

“Do you just pick the most inconvenient times to appear?” she grumbles, but at least her eyes are somewhat open now. 

“I don’t actually prioritize your convenience,” Mikael snaps, and wow, that’s hurtful, it really is. “You’re here to do a job. Has she learned?”

Cate regards him. “No,” she says slowly. “It’s been seven hours. The sun’s barely up. The only thing she’s done is sleep.” 

Mikael nods. “I’ll be going, then,” he says, and makes to disappear again. Cate grabs his arm before he can and he just stares at it, as if he can incinerate it if he does it hard enough. He probably can. She lets go quickly.

“You actually care,” she says with some surprise. Mikael gives her a blank expression. “About Sera, you mean. You weren’t trying to find out if she learned—you could have just looked down and seen us. You were checking up on her.”

“I was making sure you hadn’t fled,” Mikael argues.

Cate rolls her eyes. “You could at least make your lies believable,” she scoffs. Was it an angel thing, being a shitty liar? “Again, you could just look and see us, which is creepy on so many levels that I’m not going to get into. The only things you can’t see are emotions.”

“This was a mistake,” Mikael says, and turns away. He doesn’t, however, leave. Cate thinks of a kid who wants to storm off in a huff, but can’t because he hasn't gotten what he wants.

Cate sighs. “Sera is fine,” she tells him. “How fine she’s going to be when she tries my cooking, I can’t say, but she’s fine now.”

Surprise, surprise—he’s gone again. Cate opens the refrigerator to look for eggs, wondering when the last time she went grocery shopping was.

****

Despite the promising start, Sera doesn’t adapt to being human as well as either Mikael or Cate hope. She’s not used to feeling pain or emotion, and for the first few weeks all she does is stay in her room and throw things. Whenever Mikael checks on her she reverts back to ‘obedient subordinate’; all Cate gets are puppy dog eyes, as if she can fix any of this. 

The first time Sera bleeds she thinks she’s dying. It’s just a nick from a razor that Cate was careless enough to leave on the counter, barely breaking the skin. When Cate sprints into the room after hearing Sera’s bloodcurdling scream, Sera looks up at her with fearful eyes. “Why isn’t it healing?”

Cate explains to her the process of healing in the human body. When Sera hears that her cut will take days to heal, she locks herself in her room and refuses to get off the bed unless it’s to go to the bathroom or eat. That way, she argues, there’s less chance of injury.

Mikael puts up with this for all of a week. Then he tells Sera that if she doesn’t get out of bed, he’s going to make her human permanently.

Sera practically dives off the mattress. Cate’s offended on behalf of the human race.

To compensate for being forced into ‘dangerous situations’ such as sitting at the kitchen counter and reading a newspaper, Sera demands to know how humans go through life. 

That’s when the real problems start.

****

“Cate, what’s the box in the kitchen for?”

“That’s the microwave.”

“Can I—”

“No.”

****

“Why is my hair wet?”

“...because you washed it, you idiot.”

“It never did that before…”

****

“Why are you lighting that on fire?”

“I’m cooking it. Now go away.”

“I don’t remember humans cooking anything before. Is it new?”

“Is it—they’ve been using fire for the last hundred and twenty five millennia! What the hell kind of angel are you?”

****

“Humans are idiots.”

“...don’t tell me you clogged the drain again.”

****

“This is…”

Cate watches Mikael over the rim of her coffee cup expectantly. “Amazing? Mystical? Heavenly?”

“Disgusting!” She thinks it’s only common courtesy that keeps him from spitting the liquid back into the cup. “Have you humans not developed enough to taste the difference between sweet and bitter?”

Cate’s mouth drops open. “You—” she swipes the cup away from him and brings it to her lips, preparing to drain it Before she can, Mikael yanks it back. “You’re not even going to drink that!”

Mikael doesn’t answer. He just brings it to his face and inhales. 

“What the fuck?”

He looks at her, nose still pressed to the edge of the cup. “It smells good.”

****

Sera’s locked herself into her room. Cate regrets the day she ever taught Sera how to use the lock.

Mikael has parked himself outside, standing by her door. There’s a slight smile on his face that makes him look like he’s either high or a serial killer (or both). 

Earlier that day, Sera and Mikael had gotten into an argument over cereal. Cereal. It was no reason for them to be waking up the neighbors at six in the morning. Finally, Cate had had to interfere before something exploded (again).

When Sera finally remembered who she was yelling at, she’d screamed and ran for her bedroom. Mikael had watched her go with the same satisfied smile that he wears now. Cate is scared that he considers their argument ‘progress’.

Sera cracks open the door and sees Mikael outside. She lets out a squeak and retreats; the lock clicks again.

“For fucks sake,” Cate mutters, and storms from the hall.

****

It’s really good that Cate doesn’t have a job anymore, because running an angel daycare is harder than it looks.

“What are you two even doing?”

Sera and Mikael look up at her from their diner booth, confused. The table in front of them is empty. Sera is wearing the biggest sunglasses Cate’s ever seen. On Mikael’s head is a floppy straw hat that covers about two thirds of his face and keeps slipping over his eyes. They look ridiculous.

Apparently the entire diner thinks so too, because most of the patrons are staring at them. They seem oblivious to the attention, focused on peering through the lenses of the…

Why the hell do they have a pair of binoculars?

“We’re people watching,” says Sera excitedly. “Want to join us?” Upon closer inspection, she’s watching a couple in a far away booth. The couple is sneaking glances at them, obviously unsettled. 

When Sera lifts the binoculars again, they both stand up and rush out of the diner, barely pausing to slap a wad of bills on the table.

Sera frowns. “Why do they keep doing that?” she asks Mikael. 

“Maybe,” says Cate exasperatedly, “Because you’re being creepy. Remember the talk we had about not making eye contact on the subway?” As Sera stops to consider this, Cate takes the binoculars from her hand. 

“But I’m not making eye contact,” Sera argues. “I’m just watching. Mikael says that humans have hobbies, like bird watching, so—”

This is the strangest conversation Cate’s had since Lucifer accidentally ordered pizza. “No,” she says firmly. “You’re not going to be watching anything, because I’m confiscating these.” she holds up the binoculars. “Now can we please leave before someone calls the police?”

“They’re humans,” Mikael says with a slight scoff. “They can’t hurt us.”

Cate’s slightly alarmed that his first words since she’s seen them are threatening. “There will be no fighting,” she snaps. Mikael opens his mouth. “Or smiting, or beheading, or whatever you angels do to kill people. We’re going to leave, before we can never come back to this diner again.”

“We disguised ourselves,” Sera protests. She points at her sunglasses.

Cate grabs her by the wrist and starts physically dragging her out of her seat. Sera flails, arms windmilling as she tries to regain her balance.

“I’m so sorry,” Cate says to the woman next to them. “They’ve just...had a little too much to drink.”

The woman doesn’t seem to believe them. Cate hustles Mikael and Sera out of the diner before someone has a panic attack or shoots them in self defence.

As they emerge onto the street, Sera takes the sunglasses off. “Everything’s so bright,” she complains. Mikael adjusts the hat that has slipped down once more.

“Goddamnit,” Cate mutters as they pause at the red light.

“What?” Sera asks. She’s still fiddling with her sunglasses.

“I never got my coffee.”

****

There’s a battle going on in Heaven.

Cate knows this because she can feel the twinge at the back of her mind that calls her to fight, the twinge that she’s ignored since she left Hell. She wonders briefly why Lucifer’s even trying anymore; as far as she can tell, he’s too lazy to want Heaven under his control. She suspects it’s more of an ‘one up my brother’ thing than a conquest thing.

Sera doesn’t look particularly concerned. She’s staring out the window into the opposite apartment, watching the silhouettes move. When she’d first become human she used to be disappointed that there were no stars; now she just watches streetlights like everyone else.

Cate sets down her book and glances at Sera, who hasn’t moved in an hour. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” says Sera dreamily. She doesn’t seem to register Cate’s words very much even as she responds. Cate eyes her as she goes to put away her reading.

The door flies open as she straightens up. Sera shrieks and bolts upright, hitting herself in the head with the blinds. Cate snatches the gun from under the couch cushion (okay, not safe, but convenient) and aims at the figure standing in the doorway.

“Mika?”

Mikael is covered in blood. At first Cate assumes it’s not his because even she’s never been able to injure an angel, but then he moves his hand and she sees the gash across his chest. It’s a miracle he’s still standing; if he were a human he’d be dead. 

There’s an odd pull at the back of Cate’s mind. It’s familiar and foreign at the same time, but she ignores it in favor of concentrating on the growing puddle of red.

“I believe I may require assistance,” Mikael says, too formally as if he’s forgotten that he should be talking like the rest of society. “I—”

He sways and catches himself on the doorframe. His hand leaves a bloody print on the wood; the carpet under his feet is slowly changing color.

Cate lowers the gun. “Fuck,” she says, and bolts for the first aid kit. Gauze isn’t going to cut it; she’s probably going to need towels. When she bursts back into the living room, she finds Mikael standing calmly in the center of the room as Sera stares at him.

“Why are you helping him?”

Cate blinks in the middle of handing Mikael a towel, which turns red almost immediately. It’s a good thing angels heal just as fast as demons because there’s more blood on the floor than in his body. “I don’t know,” she says, “Maybe because his chest is gaping open?”

“He can’t be injured,” Sera says stubbornly. Her face is ashen. Cate wonders when she lost her mind.

“My carpet begs to differ,” she snaps, and then proceeds to ignore her. Angels are weird. “You might want to sit down for this.”

Mikael looks down, seemingly undisturbed by the sight of his wound until he sways and has to stumble to the dining room to catch himself on a chair. “I’m fine,” he says. He’s not. “I can stand.”

“Sit,” Cate orders. “I’m not going to stab you with a needle until you do.”

He sits. 

“If this hurts, tell me,” Cate says. “I’ll go get my camera.” 

Mikael glares, then hisses in a breath when she starts on the first stitch. There’s a rustling sound and Cate turns to watch Sera flee from the room.

“She lasted longer than I expected,” Mikael comments. Cate rolls her eyes.

They’re halfway through the stitches when Cate sets down her needle. “Okay, cut the bullshit,” she says. “You have healers in Heaven who can heal you with a touch, and they sure as Hell would be happier doing it than me. So why are you here?”

Mikael watches the needle enter and exit his skin with mild fascination. The remainder of the gash is still bleeding sluggishly, but he doesn’t seem concerned. “I needed to let Seraphiel know that Heaven is not invincible,” he explains. “In order to do so, I had to receive and sustain a wound.”

Cate stabs her needle in harder than necessary. He tenses. “You could have just given yourself a paper cut,” she says flatly.

“I learned from the Garrison that a greater shock factor leads to a more effective lesson,” he says. He’s still oddly calm.

Cate doesn’t have an answer to that for a moment. She hears the sound of Sera retching into the toilet and thinks that he’s right; she’ll never forget this. “You know she’s almost human now, right? You could have given her a heart attack.” She finishes the last stitch and tapes a wad of gauze over the wound.

Mikael looks in the direction of the bathroom. “I had not thought of that,” he says, and Cate swears the expression on his face is almost guilty.

“I thought not,” is all she says, before she walks into the kitchen to wash the blood off her hands. She’s going to have to chuck the first aid kit; there’s practically nothing left.

When she returns Mikael is gone. The blood has been cleaned from her door and carpet, and everything is the way she left it. There’s no indication he was ever here at all. 

Sera gags again in the background.

****

It’s a winter night, one of those nights where no one dares to walk outside because it’s so cold you can’t tell your right hand from your left. Cate ducks into a coffee shop to get her daily dose of caffeine and has to repeat her order four times because even her tongue is numb.

It takes her three tries to rip open the first sugar packet and she’s still trying to tear the second one when she happens to turn her head and catches sight of Mikael, sitting at a table opposite from her with his back to her. There’s that oddly familiar tug again, harsher this time.

Cate drops the entire sugar packet into her coffee, paper and all. 

“God-fucking-damnit!”

Miraculously, Mikael doesn’t even turn in her direction. After fifteen seconds, she dares to inch back around her chair and peer at him again. He leans forward and suddenly Cate gets it—if she had a date like that, she wouldn’t look away either.

Mikael’s friend says something and Mikael laughs, jolting Cate out of her trance (she’s always been a sucker for a pretty face). She fumbles for a spoon and fishes the sugar packet from her coffee, eyes still fixed on the two.

The woman tilts her head and grins, glancing at Mikael with a slightly slanted gaze. Holy shit, she’s flirting. And Mikael’s flirting back.

Cate’s first urge is to grab Mikael by the arm and read off a list of things that he should never do, but the woman is obviously infatuated with him. From the looks of it, he could slip on a banana peel and land in a dumpster, and she’d still like him.

Cate tastes her coffee. It’s not sweet enough after her mishap with the sugar packet, but she picks it up and leaves anyway. Mikael never knows she was there.

****

There’s a second, then a third, then a fourth date. 

Cate’s pretty sure that they’re going steady now, even if Mikael probably has no idea what that means. His excuses for not being around get more and more elaborate:

“There was a hold-up at the grocery store.”

“I accidentally set a kennel of dogs free and had to go retrieve them.”

“I went to the clinic because my finger hurt.”

“The elevator button was broken.”

“A tree fell on me.”

“I had to go water my houseplants.”

Sera is completely oblivious. Whatever lesson Mikael intended to teach her by making her human obviously isn’t working; she doesn’t even question why Mikael couldn’t just fly away or heal his ‘injured finger’ by himself. 

Cate is a little more dubious, but she doesn’t tell him. Relationships between the supernatural and humans never go well, and she figures this one will end just as badly as all the ones she’s tried for. Cate doesn’t want to be caught in the middle of Mikael’s first broken heart.

 

Except one day, maybe four months after the first date, Mikael asks Cate in the middle of a conversation, “How do humans feel about the idea of angels?”

Cate is in the middle of washing dishes. She gives herself credit for not dropping the plate she was holding and manages to finish rinsing it without incident. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with the hot blonde you’re seeing, would it?”

Mikael freezes. It would be amusing if the situation wasn’t so dangerous. “You knew about her?”

He sounds so surprised that Cate is annoyed. “Of course I knew,” she snaps. “Everyone with half a brain knew.” She casts a pointed look in Sera’s direction, where the girl is obliviously picking at her plate. 

“And you have more than half a brain?” Mikael counters. He drops the sneer after a moment and sighs. “Her name is Allison, and you haven’t answered my question.”

“About humans and angels?” Cate asks. He nods. She dries the last dish. “They think it’s bullshit,” she says. “You’ll end up in a sanitarium.”

From the way Mikael blanches, Cate hasn’t phrased that in the most sympathetic way possible. “They used to believe in us,” he says.

Cate shrugs. “Some of them still do,” she says. “But you’re in the wrong place for that.”

“Is it too much to ask that humanity have faith?” Mikael sounds wistful.

Cate turns around fully and dries her hands on a kitchen towel. She meets Mikael’s eyes and hopes that he doesn’t mistake the sympathy in hers for pity. “You haven’t given them any reason to,” she points out.

His jaw clenches. He accepts her argument, though it obviously pains him to do so. “I understand,” he says. “I will try to respect that.” Then he leaves, shoulders as close to slumped as he can get.

The tug at the back of her mind returns and doesn’t fade for a good thirty seconds. Cate briefly wonders if it’s what humans call a conscience, but then remembers that she technically doesn’t have one.

It would be easier to just let her go, Cate thinks as she rejoins Sera in the dining room. But Mikael would disagree.

****

Mikael’s question is the prelude to disaster, though Cate doesn’t know that at the time. 

Sera has managed to somewhat grasp the idea of social interaction, and so Cate no longer feels anxious about setting her loose among society. Cate scoffs at the activities she chooses to surround herself with—poetry reading, knitting, cooking—but they make Sera happy. 

It’s a Tuesday night, meaning that Sera has gone off to join her knitting club (which mostly consists of old ladies and their reluctant husbands). The knowledge that Sera shouldn’t be returning makes Cate wary as she opens the door. 

Mikael, who is sitting on the couch very clumsily texting his new girlfriend, offers to smite the intruder. Cate recognizes the woman standing outside as Sera’s friend Mary and barely manages to stop him.

By some miracle, Mary doesn’t notice that Mikael was prepared to kill her. It may be because she’s white in the face. “Sera’s gone crazy,” she breathes. “She thinks she’s an angel.”

Shit.

Mikael opens his mouth, but Cate rushes to speak before he does. “Wait, what? Why would she think that?”

“I don’t know!” Mary says. She’s looking around as if Sera’s going to come out of midair and grab her. “She went ballistic when I didn’t believe her; she said something about calling the Garrison—she’s insane! She’s dangerous!”

Cate frowns. She’s never heard this reaction before. The first three times she’d tried telling someone she was a demon, they’d just laughed it off, or backed uneasily away. As far as she remembered, she hadn’t caused any panic attacks.

Still, Mary is obviously panicking. Cate’s scared that she’ll pick up the phone and call a mental hospital or something. 

“Oh,” Cate says, trying her best to sound shocked. “She actually went through with it? Damnit; now I owe her a hundred bucks.”

She glares furiously at Mikael out of the corner of her eye—if he says the wrong thing, he could ruin the ruse. 

“I’m sorry?” Mary says, confusion replacing panic.

“It was a dare,” Cate explains, hoping her lying skills won’t fail her now. “I bet her a hundred dollars she wouldn’t insist she was an angel in a public area. She’s a better actor than I thought.”

“Oh,” Mary says. She sounds embarrassed now, for barging into their living room convinced that their friend was insane. “Oh. I thought—”

“Angels don’t exist,” Cate says, laughing. “Why would she think she was one? Besides, if she really thought that—well, she’d probably be trying to make magically her own scrambled eggs in the morning.”

It’s a lame joke, but Mary’s too relieved to notice. “She had me fooled,” she gives a little hysterical giggle. “I’m so sorry for interrupting your dinner. I’m just going to—” 

She bolts out the front door, which closes behind her. Cate stares at the place she once stood and turns to look at Mikael. 

Mikael’s eyes are following Mary as she gets into her car. “How can you stand to live in a world where no one knows who you are?” he asks. He sounds oddly mournful.

“You just do,” Cate says. She’s really not in the mood for a heart-to-heart.

“But what about people you’re close to?” Mikael presses. “People you see every day? How do you keep hiding from them?”

“The closest thing I had to human interaction was beating people up, and I did that for a living,” Cate raises her brows. “Do I really seem like someone who can talk about love?”

Mikael splutters. “Who said anything about love?”

A pointed glance. He glares at his hands. “Angels aren’t supposed to love,” he says. “Especially not something as flawed as a human.”

Cate snorts. “Well,” she says, “Aren’t you just the little angel who could.”

Before she can even finish her sentence, he’s gone.

That tug again. It’s becoming vaguely annoying.

****

Mikael cancels his next date. 

****

Cate should have known that good things never last—at least, not when it came to relationships. Within a week, Mikael breaks. He calls his girlfriend—Allison, he’d said so defensively—and makes up some excuse about a family emergency, then asks her to meet him at the local coffee shop.

The day before the date, he’s jittery. Angels are never jittery, so naturally Cate is suspicious. She tries her best to coax an explanation out of him, but he won’t relent even when she tells him she’s going to burn his wings off if he doesn’t. 

So naturally, there’s only one course of action left—follow him.

He’s actually made an effort to dress well, which worries Cate even before he leaves the apartment. Usually Mikael’s idea of clothing is a suit, complete with a tie and dress shoes. The more casual he dresses, the more he’s trying, and he’s in jeans and a t-shirt. That’s his equivalent of Armani.

He slides into a booth across from Allison and they stare at each other for a good minute. Cate uses their distraction to drop herself into the booth behind them.

At first, it’s just small talk. It’s such boring small talk, in fact, that Cate allows herself to zone out after Allison brings up her work for the fifth time.

It’s a tiny shriek that brings her back to the moment.

Cate cranes her neck around the back of her booth to look; luckily, Allison’s the one who’s facing her. Cate follows her gaze to the table in front of her.

Correction—the sword in front of her, which she can only presume Mikael had pulled from a rip in the dimensions. It’s his most prized possession, his symbol of power. 

Mikael, what have you done?

There’s a moment of horror where she’s sure that Allison will start actually screaming and draw the entire shop’s attention to the giant flaming sword on the table. Fortunately (or unfortunately), all Allison actually does is scramble up and run from the shop.

The tug at the back of her mind grows strong enough to hurt. Cate winces halfway through an aborted move to slide into Mikael’s booth and offer some kind of reassurance.

The door to the shop bursts open. Allison rushes back in. “I called in a favor and booked an MRI,” she says breathlessly. “If we hurry we can make it in time—this is so amazing, there are actual angels, I need to do more research—” She pauses for air. “I mean, if you agree, that is.”

The tug goes away so fast Cate falls back back against the booth. She can hear the shock in Mikael’s voice as he says, “I would be honored.”

Allison beams. She grabs Mikael by the arm and dashes out of the shop.

Cate finally dares to leave her booth. Her entire trip home is spent in disbelief.

Mikael doesn’t return for dinner, which isn’t surprising. He’s probably spending his time getting familiar with a giant magnet, having pictures of his brain taken. 

Cate and Sera dine alone. Sera has just discovered a magical thing called Instagram, and spends most of her time trying to post pictures of her meal. Cate doesn’t have the heart to tell her that no one really cares about what she’s having for dinner, especially when it’s canned spaghetti. 

Sera grins at her first (and probably only) like and Cate finds she can’t muster up the annoyance to roll her eyes.

Around ten at night, Mikael knocks at the door. Cate thinks for a second and can’t remember when he switched from appearing in the middle of her living room to actually knocking.

“She wants to set up another date,” is the first thing Mikael says. “You were wrong, Cate. Not all humans have lost faith.”

Cate wants to tell him that hoping is dangerous. She wants to tell him that Allison’s going to die one day and he’ll be both alone and lonely. She wants to tell him that humans always, always have their own best interests in mind. 

But she opens her mouth to say all of those things and can’t, so instead she smiles. “So tell me more about her, then.”

****

Cate sees the relationship going downhill before Mikael does.

She’s never dated past the two week mark, but she figures that it’s a bad thing when every time he sees Allison, it’s to do some kind of test or experiment.

Sera’s finally learning to enjoy being human. She’s taken up jogging in the morning, and tries her best to convince Cate to join her. Whenever Cate does, all Sera talks about is how Mikael is hardly around anymore—he’s too caught up in Allison.

The tug in Cate’s mind is almost constant now.

Both Cate and Sera think that his relationship is turning into a Bad Idea, if it wasn’t before. But Mikael refuses to listen to their protests. The one time Sera tries to bring it up, they get into a screaming match so loud that Cate has to stuff in earplugs and hide out in the bathroom until Mikael finally disappears.

But love only goes so far. He starts returning with blood on his clothing when Allison gets the idea to test his healing rate; he finds out that wings don’t heal quite as fast when he plucks a feather for her and winces for a week. It gets to the point that Sera can no longer stand to be around when Allison shows up.

It takes three months before Mikael has enough.

His breakup with Allison is surprisingly quiet, but then again they hadn’t been a real couple since he’d told her he was an angel. Like most humans would, Allison had gotten caught up in the idea of fame and knowledge, forgetting that he should have been more to her than a test subject.

He tells Cate and Sera of their split in a monotone. Cate looks at him, knowing it’s the first time he’s felt emotions like this, and can’t think of a single reassuring thing to say.

“The information she gathered,” Sera says, blunt as always, “It could change everything. Did she publish anything?”

Mikael shakes his hand. “I wiped her mind,” he tells her. “She doesn’t remember any of it. She wanted to keep it secret, so no one else knew.”

Thank God for small favors, Cate thinks, but doesn’t say so. “I’m sorry,” she says, the two most useless words on the planet. “I thought it would work out.”

“I had hoped that maybe I was wrong about humanity,” Mikael tells her. “I thought—”

Cate laughs. It’s not a happy laugh and Sera starts at the sound. “You’ve got a lot to learn,” she says, and scoffs. “Humanity has no reason to fear us demons—they’re far, far worse.” 

She means humanity as a whole, not as individuals. Mikael doesn’t see it that way. “As angels, we were taught that humankind was below us. Perhaps they are.”

It scares Cate that his voice is completely emotionless. She glances at Sera and sees the same trepidation in her eyes.

“Mikael,” Sera says carefully, “Just because one human hurt you doesn’t mean—”

Mikael disappears. Cate’s head throbs.

She’s so goddamned sick of his magic tricks.

****

Sera and Mikael are fighting again.

Ever since the end of his relationship with Allison, they’ve been at each other’s throats. Sera’s human friends have made her determined to see the good in humanity, and Mikael isn’t willing to hear her out. But it’s never gotten this bad.

“It’s for your own good,” Mikael says. Cate peers into the kitchen and sees them facing off, Mikael with his arms crossed and Sera with her hands on her hips. “You’ll get hurt.”

“What, just like you did?” Sera’s voice is venomous. “I can handle myself, Mikael. You can’t control who I talk to.”

“She’s just using you, it’s what humans do.”

Sera’s laughter drips with scorn. “For what, a chance at getting arrested? She doesn’t even know I’m an angel; I’m just the weirdo in her book club.”

Mikael draws himself up to his full height, and Sera stares him down without fear. “I know you don’t see it,” he tells her. “But I have more experience. I know—”

“What, just because some chick broke your heart, you’re suddenly a human expert?” Sera scoffs. She’s come a long way from the subservient angel she used to be. Mikael opens his mouth. “Don’t! I don’t want to hear it. She’s my friend, not some monster!”

Fury fills Mikael’s features. Cate realizes she’s never been fully scared of him until now—the expression on his face makes her want to shrink back into the corner.

“I am Mikael,” he says, and somehow manages to make it sound more threatening than corny. “I command the Garrison. You dare disobey?”

Just when it looks like Sera’s going to back down, she suddenly smiles. “I’m not part of the Garrison anymore,” she says smugly. “You don’t command me.”

Mikael stares at her in shock. Then, before Sera can duck away, he seizes her by the arm. They’re both gone before Cate can shout.

For a moment, Cate is consumed by blind panic. Dozens of scenarios flash through her mind; none of them end well for either Mikael or Sera. Then she realizes that his anger is proof that he does care—he’s just doing it all wrong.

The tug that’s been plaguing her for months suddenly intensifies. Cate stumbles backward against the kitchen counter and catches herself with the sink, hand pressed to her forehead as she waits for it to go away like it did all the times before.

There’s a flash of light. Pain explodes in her mind and Cate falls to her knees, squeezing her eyes shut. When she finally dares to open them, the first thing she sees are combat boots.

“As nice as the kneeling is,” says a voice above her, “It’s really not necessary.”

Cate bolts upright before she remembers her headache. She blinks against the light and her eyes widen involuntarily. “Lucifer?”

Lucifer smirks. “Who else?”

Cate stares at him. “It was you,” she accuses. “You’re the one yanking at my mind.”

The ruler of Hell shrugs. It looks more natural on him than his angelic counterpart; the movement is unbelievably infuriating. “I needed to see my brother,” he says. “I could only do so through your eyes.” He’s still studying her.

“You can’t do that,” she sees red. Some part of her knows it’s just part of Lucifer’s aura affecting her emotions, but that doesn’t make her anger any less real. She's forgotten how infuriating he is. “That’s an invasion of privacy.”

Lucifer grins. “I’m the devil, Katie,” he says. “I do what I want.”

“Right,” Cate spits. “If you’re going to kill me for being near your brother, go ahead. I’m not going to leave just because of your petty grudge.”

They’ve had this argument a million times. “Petty grudge?” Lucifer’s eyes are suddenly burning. His fists clench. “I was cast out of Heaven! I went to Hell!” 

His anger is contagious. “You made it Hell!” Cate screams back. 

His hand raises to smite her. She has a moment to think, oh shit, before it drops and he seems to sag. “I did, didn’t I?” he muses quietly.

She’s not sure how to take his sudden mood change. “So you’re not here to kill me? Or order me back?”

Lucifer gives her a disbelieving look. “Why do you always think people want to kill you?” he complains. “First Mikael, now me…” He shakes his head, then seems to realize he’s gotten off topic. His features harden. “But you make a compelling point. Maybe I should order you back.”

Cate gives him a look.

He sighs. “You always were no fun.” Another look. “Okay, I was going to order you back,” he admits. “But you actually managed to get the stick out of Mikey’s ass. I figured I’d come here to congratulate you.”

“Bullshit,” Cate says before her brain catches up to her mouth. “You don’t congratulate.” All the pieces are coming together. “All those times you were looking through my eyes, Mikael was hurt, or angry, or—” she breaks off into a realization, “You were checking up on him.”

Lucifer lets out an incredulous laugh. “Checking up on--that would imply caring,” he snarls. “He’s my brother! He was supposed to stand by my side and he betrayed me! Why would I care?”

He really is like a teenager, Cate thinks for a brief moment, and rolls her eyes. “You just said it,” she says. “Because he’s your brother, and you’re his.”

He makes an uncontrolled movement forward, then stops. His hand drops to his side again.

“See,” Cate smiles, “You won’t kill me, because he likes me.” She’s not too certain of that, but Lucifer doesn’t need to know.

“I’m not killing you because I like you,” he snaps. “It has nothing to do with Mikael.”

“Awww,” says Cate sarcastically. “I'm touched. Still doesn’t mean you don't care about him.”

Lucifer’s eyes flash.“I hate him,” he says vehemently. “I wish—”

He’s gone.

Cate looks around just as Mikael reappears with Sera by his side. “Seriously?” she says, exasperated.

Mikael frowns, confused. Sera is stonily not looking at him.

“Did you sort everything out?” Cate asks him. 

Neither of them seem willing to talk. Their silence makes Cate uncomfortable. She tilts her head and suddenly notices that something about Sera is off, like she—

“You’re an angel again,” Cate says.

Sera nods. “I’m a member of the Garrison,” she says, “And as such, I’ve been ordered to return to Heaven.” Out of the corner of her eye, she’s glaring at Mikael. 

“Leave us,” Mikael commands. With one final furious glance, Sera disappears. “Cate—”

“You made her an angel,” Cate is disbelieving. “You made her an angel again so she’d have to follow your orders. That’s—”

“Your job is over,” he interrupts. “I appreciate what you’ve taught Sera about...humanity.” He spits out the last word. “But it’s time for her to leave.”

Anger wells up in her so quickly it’s surprising. “You wanted Sera to be more human, less of a sycophant, and you still want her to do exactly as you say?” Mikael opens his mouth to say something but she runs him over, “Those two don’t go together! You don’t get to pick and choose!”

She’s breathing hard. He looks anywhere but at her, no small amount of guilt on his face. 

Cate’s tired. She’s tired of being angry, tired of being disappointed. “Sera may have been the one I was ordered to teach,” she says through gritted teeth, “But you obviously have the most to learn.”

This time she’s the one who leaves. 

****

Life goes on.

Cate finds another job—there are enough bars in the area that she has little trouble with it. Sometimes she passes the coffee shop they used to frequent and debates going in or not, but she always walks away.

She takes to people watching too, though more discreetly. There’s a girl who gets drunk every Thursday like clockwork. Every other night she sits at the bar, orders whatever the person next to her is having, and rests her head on her arms. 

One day, Lucifer sits down next to her. He does it so casually that Cate barely notices that he’s there until he signals to her for a drink.

She hands him the bottle with a glare. “Go make your deals somewhere else,” she hisses. “This place is bad enough without the hell hounds and the dying.”

Lucifer smirks. He uncorks the bottle and downs practically half of it in one swallow. “Relax, Katie,” he says, “I'm not here for business.”

Cate gives him the most disbelieving look she can muster. He spreads his hands in a ‘what can I say’ manner. For some reason, she believes him. 

“You’d better be paying for that,” she warns, jabbing her finger at the bottle he’s picked up again. 

Lucifer honest to God pouts. Cate rolls her eyes and turns away.

A group of college age kids swarm her, and Cate pours her energy into mixing their drinks and not killing them. More of it goes into the latter task.

When she next looks at Lucifer, it's with slight suspicion. He's not exactly known for telling the truth. But he’s managed to start up a conversation with the girl who never talks, and she's smiling, so Cate leaves them be.

Lucifer the therapist. Who would have thought?

They leave together; neither of them return. Lucifer pays for his drink.

****

It’s raining when Cate finally ducks into the coffee shop she’s been avoiding. Thunder booms loudly enough that Cate doesn’t regret her decision.

She shakes out her coat, wincing as water droplets spray her in the face. It’s just her luck to get caught in the rain on the only day she’s without an umbrella.

The man behind the counter looks bored out of his mind as she places her order. It’s late, late enough that the shop is almost empty. The man who fills her coffee cup is dead on his feet.

In the corner of her eye, there’s a flash of hot pink. So much pink, in fact, that Cate looks away almost immediately because the color is blinding. 

She almost walks out the door without seeing them, but something makes her look back at the hot pink splotch in the far corner.

Sera waves at her.

Cate’s feet are stuck to the ground. She looks in the direction of the door and then at Sera and Mikael, who are sitting across from each other. Mikael raises an eyebrow and Cate—well, she never could resist a challenge. 

She pulls up a chair. Sera is pulling the sprinkles off a strawberry frosted donut (as if her outfit wasn’t pink enough) and Mikael—

He’s actually drinking his coffee.

So of course, the first thing Cate says to him in five months is, “I thought you hated that.”

Mikael opens his mouth to answer, but Sera beats him to it. “He’s adapting,” she pats him on the arm patronizingly. “Isn’t that right, Mikey?”

Mikael glares. He doesn’t complain about his dislike of the letter Y. 

He takes another sip of coffee.

**Author's Note:**

> My friend and I were having lunch together, and out of nowhere her crush came over so she looks at me and goes, 'i have to water my houseplants' and then rushes off XD So then I had to write that into a story, and thus this monster was born. Thanks for reading!


End file.
